


Hide your Crazy.

by BarPurple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last customer had been awful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hide your Crazy.

Sales Associate Steve locked the door to the staff bathroom and rested his head against the cool wood. The last customer had been awful. He’d been upset over something. The man had yelled and ranted to such a degree that the few other customers in the store had abandoned their purchases and left with guilty looks, but Steve still had no idea what the problem was.

Being Steve was not easy, but most days Castiel thought he was managing the human condition rather well. For all his knowledge he didn’t have the experiences of growing up as a fully paid up member of his Father’s favoured creation. Humans were complicated and Cas still made many mistakes.

He looked at himself in the small mirror and tried to calm himself. The irate customer had gone from cursing the slushie machine, (which to be honest was something Cas could understand fully), to verbally attacking ‘Steve’ with all manner of insults. The worse had to be when all the other customers had left the store and the man lowered the volume of his voice to say the Steve was a disgusting excuse for a human being and how dare he mix with decent folk? For a terrible moment Cas had thought that this man was an angel who knew his true identity. His relief mingled with confusion as the man suddenly left the store and began a heated debate with the parking meter. Cas felt sorry for the device and even a little guilty as he locked the door and flipped the sign to ‘Back in Five’.

Now he had space to think Cas realized that the man was probably suffering from some sort of mental impairment, or was 'high as a kite'. That the man’s words had struck so close to home in Cas’ heart was nothing more than chance. As an angel he’d been confused by the human concepts of chaos, coincidence and change; these things did not make sense to an angel who had no doubt in his Father’s plan. Cut off from the Grace of Heaven and struggling to survive day to day these ideas made more sense that faith in a God who didn’t seem to care.

Cas splashed water on his face and pushed all grand metaphysical thoughts out of his head. Steve had shelves to stock and customers to serve. 

The man’s words came back to him much later, when he was curled on the stockroom floor in his sleeping bag. In the dark Cas let the words stab into him and he cried. The next morning he woke and got on with Steve’s day, awkwardly making small talk with the customers and smiling. Cas wouldn’t realize until much, much later but that was one of his greatest victories as a human.


End file.
